“Well, there’s no use wishing for what can’t possibly happen,” Grace was saying, when there came a whistle so clear and penetrating that it made them jump! then another, and another. Was it just that they were nervous or was there really something peculiarly familiar in the sound? At any rate they stopped and turned around to see who the whistlers could be. There were three soldiers coming down the road, broad-shouldered, vital looking fellows who swung along toward the astonished girls as though they owned the world. “Betty, oh, Betty!” whispered Grace in a tense voice, grasping Betty’s arm so hard it hurt. “It can’t be, oh, it can’t be the boys!” But Mollie had broken away from the group and was rushing toward the soldier lads like the wild little tomboy she was. “Girls, it’s the boys! it’s the boys! it’s the boys!” she yelled. “They’re all tanned and they’re at least ten inches taller, but it’s the boys just the same.” And before any of the other girls knew what she was about she had kissed each one of them twice and was hanging on the tallest one’s arm, who happened to be Frank, laughing and crying at the same time. Then the girls seemed to decide that she had had the lads to herself long enough, and they immediately entered the contest, all laughing at once, all crying at once, and all talking at once, until it was a wonder the boys did not lose their heads entirely. The only one who was not absolutely and completely and deliriously happy was Betty. For the other three boys were there, but Allen had not come! As though reading her thought, Will, who was much handsomer and more manly than when he went away, put an arm about the Little Captain’s shoulder big brother fashion and drew her aside from the rest. “You are wondering about Allen,” he said, and Betty nodded eagerly. “You see,” continued Will, his face lighting up in a smile that would always be boyish, “since Allen became one of the big bugs! which is another name for officer, you understand! he had to pay the penalty and stay over there with them for a little while longer. He will probably be over on the next transport, although of course you can never be sure about that. Oh, and I forgot,” he put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a pocketknife, a wad of string and! a little three-cornered note. “He asked me to give this to you as soon as I saw you. So now you can tell him that ‘I seen my duty and I done it noble.’“ With a twinkle in his eye Will turned back to the others and Betty was left to open her note. This is what she read: “Gosh, some fellows do have all the luck, don’t they? But never mind, little girl. I’m coming to you by the very first boat, and when I get there do you know what I’m going to do? Do you?” Betty wanted to run away by herself and read the note over and over again. But she could not do that. With a sigh she hid the little message in a pocket of her skirt and turned back to the others. CHAPTER XIX. LIKE OLD TIMES